Are virtual juries effective?

The way American jurors are chosen and serve has undergone significant change to meet fairness concerns for gender and racial diversity over the years. In 1986, for example, the Supreme Court held in Batson v. Kentucky that it was unconstitutional for prosecutors to strike potential jurors based on race, a requirement that was later extended to gender.

Another shift may be on the horizon. Until recently, jury selection has typically required in-person voir dire—the process of questioning prospective jurors to determine if they can be fair and impartial. After the evidence is presented and closing arguments are done, jurors are typically sequestered together to deliberate until they reach a verdict, sometimes 24-hour sequestration for days in high-profile criminal cases.

A practice that began as a COVID-19 necessity has since evolved into a broader trend: Some courts are now turning to virtual technology for civil jury trials to help clear mounting caseloads amid dwindling resources, but not without some valid concerns.

Lawyers worry about exercising their challenges during voir dire without opportunity to observe nonverbal cues and behavior, and whether they can present their case as effectively to jurors watching online. And without sequestration, there are concerns about monitoring the juror environment to assure freedom from distractions and interruptions.

Psychological research has looked at how in-person and virtual modes compare in proceedings such as bail, immigration, video arraignments, and testimony, with mixed results. One significant concern is that potential jurors who lack access to, or experience with, computers and video calls would be excluded.

In-person jury research by psychologist Krystia Reed, PhD, of the University of Texas at El Paso, and colleagues was halted during the pandemic but then allowed for a quasi-experiment using a virtual platform to compare both jury types in civil trials. Their most recent study tested competing hypotheses on whether in-person civil juries would perform more effectively or less effectively than virtual juries in processes and outcomes by examining attention to information and emotional engagement, deliberation, and diversity (Law and Human Behavior, advance online publication, 2026).

They measured attention by testing jurors’ knowledge of case facts and perceptions of the parties and measured engagement by assessing overall emotionality, attentiveness, and fatigue. They measured quality of deliberations using the length and topics of jury deliberations as well as the number of interruptions to these discussions.

Their results suggest that both virtual and in-person juries were substantially similar in process and outcomes. Virtual and in-person jurors reported being attentive and engaged throughout the deliberations. Although virtual jurors reported expending more cognitive effort in deciding cases, they did not report fatigue. Both groups reported being attentive and engaged and expended substantial effort. There were limited differences in the nature of the two groups’ deliberations in discussion of the parties, and the subjective impressions of both groups were not significantly different. Notably, the two groups also did not differ on most demographic variables.

Reed’s study suggests that virtual juries may be an answer to increasing caseloads. While many courts using virtual juries in civil cases report positive experiences, more research is needed on whether attorneys will embrace the format and in what types of cases.